Serious case reviews: Community Care’s recommendations for Laming

Serious case reviews should be published in full and sent to all relevant practioners nationally, Community Care has told Lord Laming’s inquiry into child ­protection.

In its submission to the inquiry, Community Care also recommended that the approach to serious case reviews must be altered to prevent a blame culture. It said reviews should focus on how and why errors happened rather than who made mistakes.

Community Care’s recommendations have so far received backing from experts, including independent child protection consultant Perdeep Gill.

“The argument for not publishing full reviews to protect vulnerable people is a big cop-out – you just anonymise the reports,” said Gill.

“The executive summaries are superficial and often convoluted so it is very hard to see what the missed opportunities were. There is also a problem in the way that some of the authors commissioned to write serious case reviews are briefed. They can be told not to speak to certain people, which means they are colluding to keep information out of the report.”

Focus on learning

Ray Jones, professor of social work at Kingston University and former British Association of Social Workers chair, disagreed that serious case reviews should be published in full. But he backed Community Care’s call for review panels to be independent of agencies involved in the case and that the focus should be on learning not blame.

Our website uses cookies, which are small text files that are widely used in order to make websites work more effectively. To continue using our website and consent to the use of cookies, click click 'Continue'. Find out more.